Archangel's Heart(93)

Elena snorted. “If anyone has a tank or five and a hail of burning hellfire, and oh, maybe eight layers of armor.”

“Truth—but vampires chafing at the bit don’t think with such logic.” He wasn’t talking about people like Dmitri or Cristiano, who owned their vampirism, but creatures weak of character and selfish of need. “Such minds are blinded by hunger until they see only the possibility of total freedom to glut themselves on fresh prey.”

Eyes stark with the knowledge of a woman who’d survived just such a monster, Elena stared at him. “How many died?”

“Five thousand mortals, four hundred and seventy-three vampires, one angel.”

Her fingers clenched on his. “An angel?”

“A predator attacking the herd goes for the weakest link.” Vampires in a twisted kiss were akin to a pack of feral dogs, hunted in that same instinctual way.

“In this case, a number of violent and old vampires decided to attack a scholar who was maybe six hundred years old. He stood no chance, was cut into pieces in front of his household.” As Jessamy would stand no chance against Dmitri—angels weren’t automatically stronger than vampires, a fact most mortals never understood.

“Jesus.” Elena’s face was white. “And once that first boundary is crossed, there’s no going back.”

She’d seen it, the point he was making, his consort’s mind as sharp as the blades she wore with such lethal grace. “Do you want me to finish the story?”

A jerky nod.

“The vampires then slaughtered the angel’s small household of mortals and other vampires.” Raphael had been too young to be allowed anywhere near the scene, but he’d heard adults talking about gobbets of flesh flung at the walls and bloody feathers ground into the carpet, steaming piles of innards left on the welcome mat.

“The vampires moved on to their next target soon afterward, but only after crowing of the kill so the news ran like wildfire through the region.”

Elena just shook her head, her features set in harsh lines.

“Their next target proved stronger than expected, killed the vampires, but the genie was out of the bottle. Other vampires began to strike at angels while feeding on mortals like they were disposable cattle—entire villages were left full of only the dead.” He’d looked up and read the historical records once he was older, discovered the maddened vampires had ravaged anyone in their path.

Elders with fragile bones had been thrown against the walls, children’s soft throats torn out, young men and women abused vilely while those who would protect them were murdered in brutal ways. “The mortals paid the highest price, but the angels who survived the assaults didn’t do so unscathed: a number had their wings hacked off, the vampires having learned to do that first to keep their targets earthbound.”

He thrust a hand through his hair. “There were rational vampires, almost-immortals of iron control and will who tried to halt the tide and who fought heroically to protect the mortals in their areas.” Good men and women who’d fallen in defense of the vulnerable. “But bloodlust is infectious among the young and those already predisposed to violence. And just knowing that they could kill an angel, it was enough to snap the leash.”

“Where were the ruling angels in all this?” His consort’s voice reverberated with anger.

“Flying from scene to scene, helping injured angels, executing vampires. But not even their most brutal punishments could slow the vicious rampage, much less bring it to a halt. Nothing did—not until Caliane said enough and swept in. It took her a single day to bring the entire region into order.”

Elena’s response was hard with the ruthless understanding of a hunter. “Because no vampire can ever kill an archangel.”

“And we live in a world of predators and prey,” Raphael repeated. “Remove the top predator from the chain and the entire chain collapses.”

“It’s not chance the Luminata cleared out the vampires from this region.”

“No, it appears to have been a strategy to maintain their fiefdom—but that strategy hinges on a single fragile fact: that no murderous kiss of vampires will catch wind of an entire town full of defenseless prey.”





29


Landing at Lumia approximately forty-five minutes after the others would’ve returned, he and Elena made to go to their suite, while Aodhan requested leave to seek out a healer and artist named Laric, whom the Luminata called Stillness because of his unwillingness to speak.

“According to our source, he isn’t usually out at this time of the afternoon,” Aodhan told him. “But I still wish to attempt to make contact.”